New Klein Palomino?????

Any advice on a Klein Palomino? I've been riding a Rockhopper for 2 years and would like to upgrade to a FS. I'm interested in the Santa Cruz Blur also, but saw the Palomino in my LBS and really liked it. I'd use it mostly for XC, no big drops or anything like that. Any suggestions would be great.

Any advice on a Klein Palomino? I've been riding a Rockhopper for 2 years and would like to upgrade to a FS. I'm interested in the Santa Cruz Blur also, but saw the Palomino in my LBS and really liked it. I'd use it mostly for XC, no big drops or anything like that. Any suggestions would be great.

I bought a 2004 Klein Palomino V last December 2004 in the USA. I'm very happy with the bike.
But before my happiness, I had to take it to the Klein dealer (here in Japan) and they had to modify the front derailleur so it would shift properly. They were communicating with Klein the whole time. Klein sent the bike shop people an Ultegra derailleur? to replace the one in front but that didn't work either so the Japanese Klein dealer modified it themselves. That fixed the shifting problem and I've ridden it since. It was still kinda cold to ride when we were fixing the shifting problem so I didn't mind too much. Don't know if I would buy the same bike if I knew this was going to happen. Make sure you have good LBS support if you buy the Klein Palomino. Perhaps they don't have the problem with the 2005 models???

Any advice on a Klein Palomino? I've been riding a Rockhopper for 2 years and would like to upgrade to a FS. I'm interested in the Santa Cruz Blur also, but saw the Palomino in my LBS and really liked it. I'd use it mostly for XC, no big drops or anything like that. Any suggestions would be great.

If at all possible I'd ride a bunch of different bikes on trails, it's truely amazing how different some will feel. There's a huge number of other bikes in the range (Titus motolite, Turner flux, giant trance, Ventana El Salty, etc).